Light Unknown to Good
by Hallowed Dawn
Summary: It has been many years since the Digital and Real Worlds first came together. Everyone has a Digimon partner from birth. Those that don't obviously never deserved one, since only the truly irredeemable wouldn't be selected to have a partner. But sometimes, it's not only the evil of the world that needs to be raised without that which is undeniably good. (AU, based on 02 epilogue.)
1. Prologue

**A/N: Second story on this site, new fandom. Like Flightless Night, how often I update this will be entirely dependent on my whims and current interest in the fandom, although for sure I will never permanently abandon it. Update sizes will also be variable, with a 1,000 word minimum and no maximum. Since I have six main characters for this one, however, it is very likely that the chapters will go for much longer than 1,000 words. ****As another consequence of having six main characters, along with their six Digimon partners, I'll be doing a large amount of POV changes, especially in this chapter and the next one, where all six will get a section to themselves. However, after these first two chapters, I will try to limit myself to two or three POVs per chapter when possible. This first chapter in particular, being the prologue, has a lot more things that I'm probably not going to do on a regular basis, such as all dialogue, no dialogue, and no named characters in a section. Will such things happen again? Maybe. A lot? Heck no.**

**Anyway, as I stated in the summary, this was based on the distant future portrayed by 02's epilogue, where everyone has a Digimon partner. (I still haven't decided if I want this story and 02 to be in the same universe or not, though. Either way, no canon characters will show up.) Someone had pointed out all the problems inherent with giving everyone a Digimon, in the way that people with lesser morals would inevitably start causing a lot of trouble. My immediate response to seeing this was 'Don't be silly! No one with a Digimon to guide them will turn out evil!'. Even though that is also wrong, it inspired this, sooo... ****Currently there aren't any particularly specific warnings, just for violence and general unhappiness in the main characters' lives. K+ for now, but it may get moved to a T later. ****Beyond that, there aren't really any guarantees for anything, except that I will be only using official Digimon due to personal preferences. Also, if at all possible, this will be looong.**

**Finally, I would like to state that, although I will not ask for them again unless I want opinions on specific things, reviews are always appreciated and loved. Critical reviews and reviews pointing out my mistakes are absolutely wonderful, reviews with compliments are extremely great, everything will be cherished with the exception of flames that don't tell me what to fix. I especially want feedback on my characters and how I'm handling them, since this fic is primarily a way for me to work on my personalities and interactions between characters, even if my terrible action scenes get mixed in. (By the way, if you do review, since I'm not revealing the Digimon partners until chapter 3, I'd be interested in seeing what you think they'll be. No real prizes for guessing right, since I don't really have anything I can do for you, but you'll get acknowledgement if that makes it worthwhile.)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon or its characters in any way, form, or fashion beyond some bought merchandise. All rights go to the creators, and they always will for every chapter that I write.**

**xxxx**

It was a good time to be alive. There was no war, there was no mass hunger, and sickness was easily cured. While there was still destitution, for the most part the living standard for the poor was still higher than ever. Anyone could find a way to earn a living somehow, as there were plenty of jobs to go around, and everyone did their fair share of work. Technology had advanced enough that everyone was connected, but without the price of face-to-face contact being utterly scorned. Crime was almost nonexistent, and even in the few areas it did thrive the justice system took care of things both fairly and efficiently. Poverty was hard to fall into, and easy enough to get out of, so long as the person in question was willing to make the effort. And everyone, with the exception of a miniscule portion of the population, had a Digimon partner to call their own. Only a few people suffered unfairly for things beyond their control. It still made a difference.

x.x.x.x

Her breathing was harsh as she ran, each desperate step renewing the burning in her legs. The path she took, rounding turning countless corners and cutting through innumerable alleyways, would be impossible for most people to follow. Unfortunately for Ashley, the group pursuing her, six strong, had grown up in The Maze just like she did, and could perfectly follow her every turn.

"Blue Blaster!" the Gabumon narrowly behind her called, and she had to veer sharply to the left in order to avoid the flames aimed at her. For a moment, her shoulder scraped the brick wall of the building next to her, and she stumbled.

A hand closed around her wrist as the fastest of them, the skinny boy partnered with the Gabumon, caught up to her. Of course, she had not completely lost her momentum, and her stumble turned into a fall that dragged him down with her. For a moment, he was dazed, and Ashley took the opportunity to expertly break his grip and roll over so that he was the one underneath her. Her fist slammed into his face once before his friends reached them and pulled her off.

Immediately she started thrashing around, trying to break the grip of the bear-like teenager holding her. Unfazed, he shook her, which stunned her and cut off her yelling. Ashley went limp in his arms, although he was well aware that she hadn't given up the fight just yet, judging by the way that his grip only tightened.

While a temporary moment of relative calm settled over them, the others took the chance to get things done. The Gabumon went to his partner and helped the boy up, wiping off the human's bloody nose with part of his pelt. Although Ashley had to tilt her head to see either from her current position, she heard the sounds of a Gotsumon and a Kokuwamon taking up places on either side of her. Finally, a girl that was clearly related to the guy holding Ashley marched up in front of her, coming to a stop with her feet spread wide and her hands firmly planted on her hips.

"Now, now," she said with a nasty smirk on her face. "Look what we have here! A pathetic little piece of trash! Demon child, my foot!"

Ashley spat at the other girl. "Heh," she snarled. "At least I don't need anyone but myself to beat up little girls."

"Shut up!" This shrill command was accentuated by a sharp kick to Ashley's stomach, leaving her doubled over as best as she could, hacking and trying to catch her breath again. "I wasn't finished yet," the girl continued, calming down remarkably quickly. "I was about to say that if you're so weak, maybe everyone's just talking trash again, and you're just some screwed up freak. But look at you! Even if you can't fight, you're still a menace!"

Anticipating where this was going, Ashley started struggling again, pulling at the teenager's arms. "Lionel!" he barked, which prompted the skinny boy to approach, if somewhat more hesitantly this time.

"Even if you can't actually do much, it's best to stop you now." The girl appeared to be completely unconcerned that everyone else was ignoring her speech at the moment, pacing back and forth while the skinny boy and his Gabumon attempted to recapture the arm that Ashley had broken out of the teenager's grip. Ashley successfully punched the Gabumon in his jaw, sending him reeling back, and wildly slapped the skinny boy. Said slap was weak but well-aimed, and the boy howled in pain as his probably broken nose was disturbed once more.

Her advantage in the fight was lost there, for the Gotsumon and Kokuwamon chose this moment to step in. When she lashed out against the Kokuwamon, she yelped like any other person who had tried to hit metal before her. Her attempts to kick the Gotsumon ended less badly for her, but the stone Digimon was still completely unaffected by her attempts to attack, and effortlessly forced her legs to the ground. It was almost just as simple for the Kokuwamon to grab her arm in its pincers, and she suddenly went still, very aware of just how easy it would be for either Digimon to seriously injure her.

"…Are you finally done with that?" the girl asked. "Good. Anyway, since you're easy enough to contain, I guess we'll just let you off with a warning this time. Not a nice one, though. You clearly don't deserve that. Boys, you may do what you wish."

The next several minutes were agony for Ashley as they proceeded to rough her up. By the time they let her go, laughing and jeering, she was covered in bruises and had to spend a while recovering on the ground. When she finally picked herself up, she winced as she placed weight on her left leg, hissing out a shaky breath through her teeth. This would only get worse in the morning, too. Glancing around, she finally got a good look at the alleyway she had been caught in. On one end, it opened up to the streets, where people passed by uncaring and rushed to reach home. Darkness loomed on the other side as it extended farther and went between buildings. A giant symbol was painted on the wall, in the shape of a stylized sun. Well, she recognized that particular piece of graffiti, so at least she wouldn't have any trouble finding her way home.

Ashley sighed heavily and limped back into the maze of alleyways. It was better to go home now than to wait too long and end up getting attacked and hurt even worse than she already had been. Again.

x.x.x.x

One second blended into one minute into one hour into one day into one week into one month into one year. The time that her brother was gone didn't seem very long now, having been all smashed together in a blur of activity so that her brother wouldn't think that she was slacking off when he came back, but now, in this final day of waiting, every second seemed to stretch out into another year. Her mom said this was the last time she would get to see him for a very long time, even longer than a year! She HAD to make the most out of this visit, but first he needed to hurry up and get here!

Terra sat practically smashed up against the window next to the front door, watching the street in front of her with hawk eyes. Behind her, she could sense that Lalamon was hovering, mildly concerned for her partner's daughter but otherwise understanding of the situation and willing to allow Terra to have her peace. Gwappamon was off… somewhere, probably trying to help her father cook. Oh, her brother wouldn't like that, she vaguely thought, he only liked their mom's food even if he was too polite to actually say it.

"C'moooon," Terra whined, starting to get impatient with the empty street. This was taking waay too long. Where was her brother?!

"You need to be patient, Terra," Lalamon said from behind her.

"I knooow," the human groaned, pressing her cheek against the glass. "But he's been gone for foreveeerrrrr."

Lalamon was about to reply, but movement caught Terra's eye, and she focused back on the world outside. A moment later, she squealed, and moved to throw open the door.

A Tortomon was walking down the street, with a lone human riding on it. He made for an impressive sight, especially with his military bags hanging down beside him. This effect was ruined by the Digimon he was on sporting a silly grin on its face that only grew wider as it spotted Terra. It was further ruined once the man slid off of his partner, sprinting over to Terra as she ran across the yard. Just moments before they ran into each other, Terra jumped and her brother opened his arms to catch her. They fell down into a laughing heap, and a few seconds later the Tortomon reached them and nosed his way into the pile so that Terra would hug him, too, even if she could only wrap her arms around his nose. "Heya, kiddo!" the man chuckled. "You've gotten so big since I last saw you!"

After several minutes of more greetings and declarations on how they missed each other, Terra got to her feet, pulling the man up with her. "C'mon, Bernard, I gotta show you what Mom did to the house while you were gone! She painted the walls and moved all the couches and now everything looks reaaalllllyyyyyy different! And she and Lalamon planted a new garden, too, and now I get to water the flowers and also an apple tree we planted, too, and Lalamon says that soon it'll grow big enough that we can eat its apples and Mom says that I'll be able to pick them myself, and maybe if I do good and care for it we'll plant an orange tree, too, so I've been taking care of it reaaaalllllllyyyyyy well but I need you to check and see if I need to do better! Oh, and Dad's been teaching me how to make music and play the guitar and stuff, and he helped me write you a song, so now you have to hear it! And all sorts of other stuff happened, too! I wrote to you about a lot of it, but TONS more things happened, so now I need to tell you about it! And and and…"

She babbled on cheerfully while her brother indulgently listened. Later on he would ask questions and tell stories of his own, but for now he simply allowed his sister to mindlessly talk. However, although he was acting happy, when Terra turned away for a moment to close the door, she caught a glimpse of him frowning sadly at her. Not that this was unusual, course. Her family always seemed so sad when they looked at her! It wasn't like she was sad at all most of the time, so why were they? But they never answered when she asked, so she supposed that she just wouldn't get to know and would have to try and cheer them up regardless. Silly family! Everything was alright! Even if she might never see her brother again after today, in the end everything would go just fine! There was nothing that they needed to worry about!

And that was why she spoke so much. So that they could see that.

x.x.x.x

"Where have you been?"

Percy froze in place, his only movement being to slowly turn his head around so that he could see the speaker of that question. A pair of stern blue eyes met his gaze, belonging to a white feline perched on the back of the living room couch. He allowed himself to relax the slightest bit, relieved that it was Gatomon, and not Angemon or their partners, speaking. She was probably the best to deal with out of his four guardians, even if she had a nasty temper.

"Out," he thus said, keeping his eyes down. From previous experience he knew that anything but this kind of submissive reaction would end badly for him.

"Out where?" Gatomon demanded, jumping down from her perch and stalking up to him. Without being asked, Percy shrugged off his backpack and opened it up, showing her the contents within.

"The library," he replied. "I needed to work on a project."

"Mm-hmm, sure." The remark wasn't necessarily a disbelieving one when said by Gatomon, especially since she appeared to be satisfied by the school books she found when digging through his backpack. "And who did you inform of your plans for after school?"

"Well…" Percy said, stalling for time as he tried to come up with a good excuse. "I tried to call the house, but no one was answering, so I assumed that you would be out for the night."

"Everyone else is," Gatomon confirmed. "I only stayed for part of the event, though." After one last suspicious look at his math textbook, she reloaded his backpack and closed it before handing it back to him. "Well, I guess I can give you the benefit of the doubt just this once. However, from now on, if you get no reply you must come straight home after school, do you understand? As punishment you'll go without dinner tonight. Now. To your room."

Percy groaned but hurried away from her and up the stairs of his house while she was still in such a generous mood. Really, he should have known better than to try and go somewhere without permission even if getting permission was currently impossible, so he deserved worse than that. Chances were that Gatomon would keep it a secret since it was his first time offence, too. As he thought about it, he felt luckier and luckier. Going without dinner for another night was nothing in comparison to what could have happened, so he couldn't feel anything but grateful to Gatomon for her mercy.

…Now that he thought about it even more, that was a terrible way to think.

"I bet my real parents wouldn't put all of these stupid rules on me," he muttered to himself. "I bet they'd actually love me."

Not that he had any proof of that. He flung himself onto his bed, dropping his backpack down on the floor beside him, and started to just stare at the ceiling and think. Truth be told, if it weren't for his current guardians, he probably be doing terribly right now, if he was even still alive by that point. It was a miracle that anyone would ever want to adopt someone like him in the first place, and even more so that they were treating him so well. Percy had far more freedoms than he probably deserved, and was regularly given things that his birth parents probably couldn't even afford. If he was being honest with himself, then he had absolutely no right to complain about his life.

Still, he silently did, and longed for the life he could have had had things turned out just a little bit differently.

x.x.x.x

"I'm home!"

"Good, now give me my digivice back already!"

"Ugh, calm down! I'm giving it to you already, you don't have to grab at me like that!"

"Give me Kunemon, too!"

"I'm not stopping him from going to you, sheesh!"

"Kunemon, hurry up and get over here, then!"

"But it's so comfortable, being on her shoulders like this…"

"Kunemon!"

"Alright, alright, I'm coming…"

"Good."

"You don't need to be so harsh to him, do you? He's had a pretty long day, everyone was sparring over lunch."

"Why'd you let him do that?! He could have gotten hurt!"

"He'll get hurt if you keep hugging him like that. Besides, it was just a friendly match, no one was aiming to injure. We're supposed to pretend that he's my partner, remember? It'd be blatantly out of character if I refused just because you didn't like it."

"Well, you should have had different character!"

"I thought you were fine with me fighting!"

"Now I'm not!"

"Is it because Veemon got hurt? He's not even your partner!"

"Well, we're pretending he is, remember?"

"…Touché. But still. Now you learned a lesson: Don't be reckless. This doesn't mean that you should be so overly cautious, though."

"Hey, stop talking to me like that! I'm older than you, you know!"

"Then act like it!"

"Claudia! Lupe! That's enough!"

"Yes, Mama…"

"Now, Lupe, Claudia gave you your digivice back, and Kunemon's not hurt at all, so I don't see why you're complaining. Go back and help Lora with your chores."

"Yes, Mama…"

"Claudia, stop fighting with your sister! She's older than you, so you shouldn't be disrespecting her in such a way!"

"But Mama-"

"No buts, now go and do your chores. Be grateful that she's letting you borrow Kunemon at all."

"Yes, Mama…"

x.x.x.x

Three people, two girls and one boy, walked down the sidewalk. A Gazimon closely followed one of the girls, while an Otamamon rode in the boy's backpack. The other girl, lacking a Digimon, lagged a few steps behind the others, politely listening to their conversation, started by the boy.

"Hey, did you hear? One of those Digiless killed a guy yesterday."

"What?! How?!"

"Apparently the guy had gone out shopping or something, and the Digiless broke into his house. When the guy came home, the Digiless was hiding, and he jumped out and stabbed him!"

"Wow…"

"Yeah. The guy's Digimon caught the Digiless, but by the time the guy got to the hospital it was far too late."

"Man, that's what, the second time this month? Sixth time this year? They're getting bolder…"

"They are, aren't they? Then again, I don't know why anyone would ever expect anything different. That's all they are, violent criminals!"

"Yeah! I hear they have this _look_ about them, you know? Like they're just looking for an opportunity to attack whoever they're with!"

"And if you aren't careful, they'll rob you blind!"

"God, I'm glad that I have Gazimon to protect me! Imagine being _alone_ with one of them!"

"…Um…"

This last sound came from the girl behind the pair, who had stopped in her tracks. The boy and the other girl stopped to, turning around with surprised gasps as they remembered who was with them.

"Oh, but not you, Faith!" the girl quickly said, growing flustered. "You're totally different!"

"Yeah!" the boy chimed in. He at least had the decency to look slightly apologetic. "You're actually pretty cool!"

Still, Faith hugged her arms around herself and looked down to the side. "No, it's okay. I know that I'm never going to be able to be like you."

"Aw, don't be like that!" the boy said, walking over and putting a friendly arm around her shoulders. "C'mon, we still have that project to finish up, don't we? Let's get going so that we can work on that!"

"Alright," Faith softly agreed, giving the two tamers a small smile as she followed them again. A few moments after they had turned back around she let her smile drop back down into a sad little frown.

x.x.x.x

Isaac had mixed feelings about his school.

On one hand, it was loud and noisy and everything that he had ever despised about any sort of place. There were no apologies if someone ran into him, and it was almost inevitable that he would accidentally step on a few toes and draw some unwanted ire from others. When he was having a lucky day, he might find a place to eat his lunch that had relatively few people in it. If he ever found a place completely devoid of people, he might as well go and buy a lottery ticket. Plus, he didn't have any friend, so even though there were so many people he was still completely isolated. While everyone laughed, joked, and chatted amongst themselves, he didn't have anything to do but doodle, take notes, and read. He became a good student simply because he had no other choice of ways to spend his time. What else could he do? Stare at his bedroom wall and contemplate how lonely and bored he was? Isaac had gotten tired of doing that years ago.

Despite this, there was still another hand, on where his unbearably large school unwittingly provided a blessing. No one knew who he was, and no one cared. Only the most observant would notice that he didn't have a Digimon amongst the general chaos that the digital partners could provide. Even if they did, they were probably somewhat glad that he wasn't helping to cause any more trouble in the classrooms, and thus left him alone. Every so often someone would remember him and everyone would start rumors and give him a wide berth in the hallways, but then he would just keep doing what he always did and a week later they'd forget him in favor of the newest scandal. So long as he kept his head down and didn't say anything, it was actually pretty easy for him to survive school life, no matter how much he hated it, however much he despised having to remain unknown amongst his peers. Not that there was much special about him in the first place, but he never even got to have a ghost of a chance in the first place.

At least when the bullies waited outside of the school gates, they were planning on jumping the nerdy kid walking next to him or someone else that wasn't him. At least when someone got horribly rejected by the most popular girl in school, it was someone else asking her out, not him. At least when a stupid remark or action got laughed at by the entire class, it was someone else's, not his. At least when parents beat their children and called them nasty names, it was the parents of someone else, not him. At least anything bad that happened publicly happened to someone else, not him.

Children walked past him down the hallway, heading for home. He took his time at his locker, knowing that there was no point in rushing. It wasn't like his parents would care what time he got home at, so long as he didn't disturb them. Besides, he liked to keep his locker neatly arranged so that he could grab his things quickly from it, so if he wanted it to look nice in the morning then he had to put in the effort now. It was absolutely necessary that he carefully replace his textbooks and notebooks in their designated spots so that they were arranged by subject, especially so that he could look busy while the local school bully and his BlackAgumon tromped past behind him. It was rare that they ever paid him any sort of attention, but sometimes if he looked like he was staring they might notice him. That was never a good thing.

So really, it was good that he was practically invisible, just another face in the crowd. Because of this, Isaac was safe. And that was all that he could ever hope for.

x.x.x.x

"It is time," the figure stated to the six creature below. "I am still unable to tell you much, but if you follow my instructions, then you will learn for yourselves why you have been waiting and what you are missing."

"Finally!" one of the creatures called, looking torn between being annoyed and excited. "I thought you'd _never_ get around to telling us why we're here!"

"I still am not," the figure replied calmly. "Someday I will, though."

Before the first creature could speak again, a second interrupted. "Be grateful that we get that much," it muttered to the one beside it.

"Yes," a third chimed in. "Plus, what we are getting should be even better!"

"Heh, as if," another snorted. "This'll be laaaame."

"Y-You don't know that for sure!" the fifth said, only to cower back when the fourth turned to give it a nasty glare. "…S-Sorry…"

Only the last remained silent, even when the figure's gaze was directed onto it. "And you?" the figure asked. "What do you think of what I've had to say so far?"

"Whatever," the figure growled. "Just get on with it already."

"Alright," the figure said. "Then I will."

In front of the figure six lights appeared, each glowing a different color. The figure beckoned the first creature to move forward, and one of the lights, glowing orange, floated down to it. Almost immediately, the light died down to reveal a strange device, orange and white and shaped somewhat like a rectangular box. With a wave from the figure, a white string also appeared and floated down to the first creature, attaching itself to the device and then looping around and tying itself into a knot in order to form a necklace, which then settled itself on the creature. As soon as this happened, the figure started speaking.

"This will reveal to you what you have been seeking all along. To find what you are searching for, go to the palace where evil reigns over what was once pure and innocent. There, you will inevitably encounter someone, although I cannot describe them to you. However, be not dismayed, for you will know them when you see them. Give my gift to them, and they will be able to use it. Help them on their quest, and they will help you on yours."

"Alright!" the first exclaimed. "That's easy! I'll have this done in no time!" It stepped back to allow the next to step up, obviously eager to get going to its destination.

The second to speak was also the second to go, and a pink light floated down to it. What happened the first time happened once more, except that this time the device was pink where the first one had been orange. Once more, the figure spoke.

"This will reveal to you what you have been seeking all along. To find what you are searching for, go to the forest border of the land of a people living in fear and desperate for a savior. There, you will inevitably encounter someone, although I cannot describe them to you. However, be not dismayed, for you will know them when you see them. Give my gift to them, and they will be able to use it. Help them on their quest, and they will help you on yours."

The creature nodded gravely. "Thank you," it murmured, before stepping back and allowing the third creature to take its turn.

This time, the purple light came down to create a device, although nothing else about the process changed, and the figure's words still changed little.

"This will reveal to you what you have been seeking all along. To find what you are searching for, go to that place where the paths of darkness and light diverge. There, you will inevitably encounter someone, although I cannot describe them to you. However, be not dismayed, for you will know them when you see them. Give my gift to them, and they will be able to use it. Help them on their quest, and they will help you on yours."

"Thank you very much!" the creature said with utmost sincerity, happy as it moved back and the fourth moved forward.

It rolled its eyes as it received the golden light, and it was obvious that it stopped paying attention to the figure's speech after the location it needed to go to was named, but it at least kept silent until after the figure fell silent.

"This will reveal to you what you have been seeking all along. To find what you are searching for, go to the cliffs that none can climb and none can survive a fall from. There, you will inevitably encounter someone, although I cannot describe them to you. However, be not dismayed, for you will know them when you see them. Give my gift to them, and they will be able to use it. Help them on their quest, and they will help you on yours."

"Yeah, yeah," the creature said, turning around. "Go and run around some more, you don't think that we've gone on enough dangerous quests yet, blah blah blah."

For a few moments no one moved, and then the fourth shoved the fifth forward. "Come on!" it said. "Not all of us have all day!"

A blue light responded to its presence, not stopping even when the fifth flinched away. It trembled as the figure spoke.

"This will reveal to you what you have been seeking all along. To find what you are searching for, go to a place where water, earth, and sky meet, and where all are prepared for the fickleness of the waves. There, you will inevitably encounter someone, although I cannot describe them to you. However, be not dismayed, for you will know them when you see them. Give my gift to them, and they will be able to use it. Help them on their quest, and they will help you on yours."

The fifth calmed down somewhat upon hearing where it would go, although it still hurried to get away from the figure. Even before it started moving, however, the sixth and final creature was stalking up.

Although it tolerated the speed at which the red light came down and the string joined it, as soon as the necklace was formed it snatched the device out of the air and placed it around its neck. "Stop being so slow," it growled.

Despite this, the figure was undisturbed as it started speaking.

"This will reveal to you what you have been seeking all along. To find what you are searching for, go to a place between two teeth of the land, where death is the only unbroken law. There, you will-"

"I know this already, we all heard this the first time, you don't have to keep saying it!" the creature snapped, shocking the other five. Without waiting for an answer, it promptly turned and left.

After a few moments of shocked and uncertain silence, the figure spoke again, still perfectly calm. "Well, then, I believe that you all know what you need to do. I have nothing else to tell you. Go now, and may the best of luck follow you all."

Without further argument against this definitive statement, the five creatures also turned and left, following the steps of the sixth.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Well, when I said that my updates were not guaranteed to be constant, I honestly did not mean to take so long to update the second dang chapter. But unfortunately, I was plagued by such troubles as this being extremely difficult to write for a couple of reasons, and then me completely forgetting about this in favor of school and other things. I'm still not happy with this chapter, to be honest, and I'm kind of afraid that I made several mistakes already with the direction I'm taking the story, but I at least know what I want to do from here, and since I actually want to write the scenes I have planned out for the next few chapters (and have plenty of free time), with luck the next updates should take much less time.**

**I wouldn't be surprised (or blaming) if you've forgotten about this story after I took several months to update, but thank you very much for reviewing, Guest and JJWalker12! Also, thanks for following, Something dictionary related, and special thanks for both following and favoriting, . ! It's all dearly appreciated, especially since it helped remind me to come back and write this chapter!**

**As with the last chapter, all six points of view, in the same order. The exposition starts (especially in Faith's section), although I'm trying to keep it spread out so that I'm not infodumping to much on all of you. Even so, I might forget to add in some important worldbuilding detail, so if anything confuses you, please feel free to ask about it. If I don't have clear plans to discuss it in detail later on, I'll either explain/clarify it in the A/N or add in an explanation in the story as soon as possible.**

**Anyway, without further ado, I finally present to you Chapter 2(technically Chapter 1, though) of Light Unknown to Good**

**xxxx**

When Ashley wasn't busy fighting or going to school, she could generally be found on the roof of her apartment building. It was pretty much the only place she could go and have a full guarantee that no one would follow, so when she wanted to be alone she would go there. (If she felt like being with others, well, the chances of her not getting into some sort of fight were next to zero, so she only got any sort of peace up on the roof.)

The great thing about the roof wasn't so much that no one would follow her, but more that no one _could_. Sure, it was possible to climb the stairs to the top floor, since nowadays the elevator only worked for the bottom half of the building. Sure, once up there, it was possible to navigate past the holes in the floor and the piles of rubble with pieces of rusty metal sticking out of them. Sure, a flashlight was more than enough to successfully navigate once one walked down that first hallway and turned the corner. Sure, at no point were there any locked doors or blocked-off passageways. However, if anyone had tried to do this by themselves or tried to follow Ashley without permission as she made this journey, they most likely would never take another step.

This was because only Ashley knew to bring a piece of electronics with her, such as the broken cell phone she had fished out of the trash that morning. Only she knew to raise it when she turned the corner, and to call to the creature hulking at the far end of the next hallway. Only she knew what to say when she called to it.

"Hey, Infermon!" There was no fear in her greeting, mostly because she knew that the now slowly approaching Digimon would not harm her. She knew that so long as she remained calm, it would only closely examine her with its green and yellow eyes when it reached her. When it gently grabbed the cell phone from her hand using its mouth, she did not flinch, and she did not otherwise react negatively when the Infermon crunched it between its jaws, swallowed the remains, and turned around to return to its post. Instead, she calmly followed it, eager to get to the roof. Today she had brought some lunch, so she could have a picnic and dump the remains on her father's Raremon, who permanently lived in the alleyway right outside of their apartment.

Her plans were put on hold, however, when she passed the old man's apartment. He had been the one to buy out the entire top floor, simply so that he and Infermon could live in peace. They had earned that, too, since anyone who had lived long enough for their partner to evolve to Ultimate deserved nothing but the highest respect. That was why Ashley generally avoided bothering the old man unless he wanted her to do something for him. Even though he had completely withdrawn from society, he still outranked her. Despite this, he never really seemed to care that she was the scum of the earth, and never flaunted the fact that if he allowed Infermon to kill her no one would care. Actually, it seemed like he rather liked her, and would randomly initiate conversations, even at times such as now.

"Ashley!" His shout as she passed by made her jump, and spin around to face the open door of the apartment he lived in. "C'mere! I haven't spoken to you for a while!"

"It's only been about a week," she replied loudly, stepping past his doorway and into his living room. The old man sat on his couch, an overstuffed thing that was surprisingly uncomfortable. Ashley stopped right in front of him, although he did not look up from the digivice in his hand. "What'cha doing?"

"I'm trying to remember how this thing works," he sighed, throwing his hands up in the air and finally directing his gaze up at her. For a moment his eyes narrowed as he mentally assessed the black eye and busted lip she sported as a result of her latest fight, but he thankfully didn't comment on it. "I don't suppose you can help me?"

"Nope, sorry old man. I've never even gotten to touch one before. Aren't all you tamers supposed to know how to use these things from, like, your birth or something, though? How'd you forget how to use it?"

"I don't know how the system works nowadays, but back when I was a child we had to memorize how to use digivices. Once I knew all of its functions and how to activate them by heart, but I haven't used it in so long that I'm afraid I've forgotten everything but the basics. What I'm trying to do is quite a bit more complicated than the basics."

"What are you trying to do, then?" She sat down beside him, peering curiously at the device in his lap. Most tamers hid theirs away from her, afraid that she would steal, break, or corrupt it somehow. As if she would. The teachers at her school had spent so long making sure that she was completely excluded from all Digimon-related activities that she wouldn't know what to do with a digivice even if she did get her hands on one.

"Ah, nothing exciting, really. I just wanted to go back and look at some of the data I've got stored on Keramon."

"Keramon?"

"Infermon's Rookie form. I just realized something about Infermon's data, and I wanted to go back and check to see if Keramon's data was the same."

"Okaaay, that's pretty vague…"

"Never mind that, though! I need you to do something for me, if you don't mind."

"Uh, sure. What d'ya need?"

"There's a computer in my bedroom. I need you to turn it on and log in. The password is 'SHINKA', S-H-I-N-K-A, all caps." Strange. Normally both personal and general passwords were much longer, at least from what Ashley could tell. What was the old man doing with only five characters for his password?

"Is that it?"

"Yes. Please go do that."

"Got it!" Ashley climbed over the back of the sofa and landed neatly on the floor. Five large steps later, and she was standing at the door to the old man's bedroom, something that she had never been in before now. It was surprisingly messy, especially in comparison to how pristine the old man managed to keep his living room and kitchen area. Stepping over the clothes strewn about the floor, she made her way to the computer sitting on a desk in one corner. Even with her limited knowledge of computers, she knew that this one was a dinosaur, completely obsolete against modern technology. Despite this, it ran smoothly when she turned it on, and only spent about a minute loading after she entered the password. What loaded, however, shocked her.

The only thing on the screen was a black background with some sort of blue S-shaped symbol on it. There was no Gate Program.

As far as Ashley was aware, it was impossible to even delete the icon for the Gate Program. The only way for a computer to not have one was for it to have never had the Gate Program installed in the first place. But that was unheard of!

She didn't have time to contemplate this any further, however, for at that moment, the symbol on the screen glowed, growing brighter and brighter until the entire screen was engulfed in blinding light. Stumbling back a step, she threw one arm up to protect her eyes from it, not noticing the sharp gasp that forced itself from her throat. Suddenly she felt a tugging sensation, pulling her towards the computer screen. "Old man-!" the girl started to yell, fighting to resist the force. Unfortunately, her efforts were in vain, and she found herself being dragged forward. The last thing she saw before entering the computer was that harsh white light.

x.x.x.x

Terra was lost. This wasn't a new thing at all, mind you, but she was slightly more lost than usual. After years of exploring the forest she was currently in, she knew all of the nearby trails pretty well, and normally it took her a day or so of walking to find a trail that she hadn't seen before. Actually, her discovery of this current trail was something of a miracle, since it had only required for her to follow the fence line for about five minutes before entering the woods. She wasn't entirely certain how she felt about this discovery, since although it had been fun and exciting at first, after a few hours of walking all the path had done was twist and turn so often that she didn't even know which direction was north anymore. Not that it made her like the trail any less, of course! It was just… she had brought supplies to camp out here and all, but there had been tons of branching paths and she couldn't say for sure that she wouldn't accidentally try to go down one of those when she tried to come back, and she really didn't want to have to find her way back from a mistake like that since her parents had promised to hold her birthday celebration a few days early and she was super excited for that! In fact, she was so excited that she had promised herself that she would get back by tonight if at all possible, so that she could eat cake and open her presents tomorrow instead of having to wait until the day after!

She would have turned back earlier, actually, but she wanted to find something super exciting first! Otherwise all she would have to talk about were pretty trees, not even a cool rock or something, and that would be really disappointing. Stopping for a moment in order to better contemplate this, Terra frowned. While she was walking she hadn't really noticed, but now that she was thinking about the forest she noticed that it had gotten really dark in a scary spooky kind of way. Sure, the sky overhead was still blue, but the trees had been growing a lot closer together. Not nearly as much light had been passing through their branches. Also, while birds had been chirping and singing earlier, they had fallen silent now. Plus, it was getting harder to find the path. Maybe this had not been one of her better ideas…

The girl quickly shrugged away the thought and continued walking, motivated by the new possibility of the sudden scariness of the forest meaning that something special was nearby. There could be some kind of awesome spooky house or cave nearby! Those were always nearby in the movies she had seen, anyway. Never mind that people tended to die in them, it would be a great adventure to talk about! Still, just in case, she pulled out her compass. It was an ancient thing, rendered obsolete by the fact that digivices had compasses built into them, but it had been passed on as a family heirloom until it found its use with her. Terra knew that the forest she was in was to the southeast of her house, so if she needed to get back home she could just had to go to the northwest and she'd eventually come across a fence line or something. However, it didn't look like it was being of much use now, since the needle was moving all over the place in a distinctly unusual way.

"Hm…" she muttered, taking a few steps forward to see if it would work. Then, when it didn't, she took a few more, and then some more, until she had started going down the path again without noticing it due to her engrossment with the compass. It wasn't until she reached a clearing that she stopped and looked up.

It wasn't exactly a pretty sight.

A cabin dominated most of the clearing, old and beaten down. By the looks of it, about half of the roof had fallen in, while the porch was smashed to the point that Terra wasn't entirely sure she would be able to get past it and into the building. Claw marks marred the walls, and it looked like something had been dragged out into the surrounding forest. Walking closer, she could tell that the wood of the cabin had been stained by some sort of liquid that she supposed probably wasn't water, although she had no idea how old these stains were. With a quick glance around her, Terra determined that she was alone, and climbed over the splintered remains of the porch and into the cabin.

There wasn't much to look at, since very little of it was still intact. More claw marks, more stains, some torn-up furniture. A small skeleton curled up in one corner, looking like some sort of small mammal. Common sense told Terra that perhaps this wasn't the best place to be. Curiosity told her that she should find out more before she contacted the authorities.

Little was left of the only doorway that was even identifiable as a doorway, but Terra could duck under the remains of the door and into the next room. Nothing was there but a small table and a computer, hooked up to a bunch of batteries and power supplies. Well, this was unusual. She had never even heard of something like this happening before.

"I wonder…" the girl started, and then she was kneeling in front of the table and computer, investigating them. After all, if she just went home and tried to alert the authorities or something, she'd probably never hear about it again! Plus, she wouldn't get to discover the details. For example, someone had scratched 'SHINKA' onto the surface of the table. What did that mean? She didn't know, but the computer would probably help her find out.

Thus, she turned it on, after taking a few minutes to figure out how since this looked almost nothing like the computer at home. Of course, the first thing that she saw was a screen that asked for a password. Having no other idea what said password could be, her first guess was 'SHINKA', which, conveniently enough, was correct.

Unfortunately, her investigation stopped there, for there was literally nothing on the computer but a black background with a blue S shape on it and an indicator that the computer was almost out of battery. All that she learned was that she would have to tell someone about this for sure, because there was no Gate Program on this computer and that was extremely illegal! As a matter of fact, that was so illegal that she immediately turned around, and would have left if light didn't start suddenly spilling onto the walls in front of her. Without missing a beat, she turned back around to look at the now-glowing computer screen, just as she started feeling the tug. Terra didn't put up much of a fight against it, partially because she had been taken by surprise and didn't react until it was far too late, and partially because there wasn't much to do but roll with it. Thus, the light consumed her without either of them putting up much of a fight at all.

x.x.x.x

"Percy!" his father called. "Come here!"

The aforementioned boy had been in his room with the door shut, but his father possessed a loud enough voice that he heard it without difficulties despite being downstairs. He grumbled to himself as he got up from his bed, carefully marked his place in the terrible book he had been reading out of sheer boredom, and made his way to his father. Of course, his grumbling died down by the time he had left his room. While Percy hadn't recently done anything that could possibly deserve punishment and thus a reason for apprehension as he went to the much older man, acting reluctant to follow his commands could quickly leave Percy regretting it.

Luckily, his father looked calm, happy even, so as long as Percy cooperated with him he probably wouldn't think to rebuke his adopted son for anything else. "Yes, Father?" Percy asked once he was by his side, still a little cautiously. While he wasn't as liable to change moods quickly as his wife was, sometimes he would pretend to be one mood when he was really another, just to lull Percy into a false sense of security.

Now didn't seem to be the case, however, for all he did was nod to the dining room before he strolled into it. "Follow me, I want to show you something."

Obediently Percy followed, mildly confused. Angemon was in there, along with Gatomon, who was curled up asleep on one end of the dining table, although his mother was nowhere to be found. On the other end, a computer sat amongst a pile of boxes. These boxes were filled with all sorts of random objects, from an ornate lamp to a stuffed Koromon. "Ignore the boxes," his father commanded. "Look at this computer."

Odd. Normally Percy wasn't allowed near computers, even if he wouldn't be able to do anything to them. At any other point before now, his father would have already reprimanded him for standing within a few feet of it. Was this some sort of test? If so, what was the correct answer? Was there one? He glanced from his father to the computer, hesitating.

After a few moments of this, his father made an impatient gesture. "Well, go on," he said gruffly. "I'm not biting. This is important for you to know."

With this prompting, Percy was quick to step forward and inspect the computer. He couldn't say that he had ever seen anything quite like it, although it looked fairly modern. It had already been turned on, and someone had logged into it. The background had been changed from the default, into a black screen with a blue symbol, shaped like the letter 'S'. Literally nothing else was on it, so why was this special?

It only took him a second to realize what was missing, and upon hearing Percy's gasp of realization, his father nodded and started speaking. "We confiscated this computer from a black market dealer last night, and didn't get around with investigating it until today. I brought it home for both safekeeping and investigation, since we're fairly certain that one of our officers is dirty and has been stealing from our evidence lockers. The explanation isn't important, however. What is important is that you understand that this is one of the highest crimes one can commit in our society, right up there with rape and murder. Not having the Gate Program is unnecessary, likely to endanger lives, and only worthwhile if you're a criminal. I know that you have been taught this before, but you didn't think I was being serious when I told you that it was possible, did you?" That was uncomfortably close to the truth. Percy kept quiet until his father continued. "Well, now you have proof. It's difficult, but it's possible. Why did I tell you this? It's not like it even matters to you, right?" Once more, Percy didn't speak. He had never been assigned either a personal or general password, so he wouldn't be able to use computers unless someone logged into their account and let him use it. Still, his father probably had a point with this. "I want you to know this so that you know to report anyone who claims to have a computer without the Gate Program. Don't _ever_ assume they're just lying. Got it?"

"But why?" Percy blurted out, flinching back immediately. His father only exhaled slowly, however.

"I told you, only criminals would ever want to keep a computer that doesn't have the Gate Program. If you don't report them then you're actively assisting them. Do you _want_ to assist a criminal? One those despicable creatures? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised, considering, well…"

"No!" Percy interjected hastily, shaking his head urgently. "No. I'd _never_…" He studied the ground diligently. "No. I understand. If I ever see another computer, I'll be sure to report it. Thank you for the lesson, sir."

"Good." He didn't have to look up to know that his elder was smiling, although his smile always looked more like a smirk. "Anyway, I must go find your mother. Angemon, come on." Without another word, he swept out of the room with his Digimon partner, leaving Percy alone with the still-slumbering Gatomon as the only other living thing there. The boy frowned, and slumped his shoulders. Great. Once again he had allowed his father to get to him. What was he, a wimp?

"Yeah," he muttered out loud, rolling his eyes at himself. "Better than being a monster, though, I suppose."

And that would have been that, if the computer screen hadn't started glowing at that point. Startled, he made a strangled sound, only cutting himself off when he noticed Gatomon starting to stir. If she woke up, she would blame him for this. Best to get out now.

…Except that he found he couldn't move away. He couldn't move at all, actually, unless it was towards the computer. Heck, he couldn't even not move. The only thing he could do was submit to the tugging sensation taking him towards the computer. "Oh, great," he growled, and would have seriously contemplated just yelling for help despite the probable consequences if it weren't for the fact that he didn't have a chance to before he had been pulled into the lit up screen.

x.x.x.x

"Kunemon…" Claudia whined. "Please?"

The Larva Digimon turned his head away from her, stubbornly sitting on the driveway of Claudia's friend's house. "No! And stop giving me that look!"

Claudia pouted, but dropped her puppy-eyes. Well, if that wouldn't convince him to go with her, then she would have to resort to reasoning. "Why not?"

"I already told you why! She gives me a bad feeling!"

"Who? Frieda? Come on, you and I both know she's harmless."

"Tell that to her dead butterfly collection!"

"First of all, calm down, you'll cause a scene. Second of all, you aren't a butterfly Digimon, now are you? I bet you'll get along fine with Dokunemon."

"That horrid thing…" Kunemon muttered darkly. Claudia took this opportunity to grab him and start walking, heedless of how he wriggled and squirmed in her arms. "HEY! Let me go! I'll tell Lupe!"

This caused Claudia to pause, but only for a moment. "I'll buy you that weird brand of ice cream you like."

"…Fine." And from there Kunemon allowed Claudia to carry him with her to the front door of Frieda's house. After the first ring of the doorbell, the door swung open, revealing a boy with more piercings than it looked like his face could properly hold up.

"You here for Frieda?" he asked, already turning away and shouting for the girl. The Dokunemon draped across his shoulders didn't react at all to the sound, although the way that it was twitching indicated that it was awake. However, a Pinamon jumped up with a squawk, running around their legs several times before running back out of the room.

"Rudy's Puwamon evolved?" Claudia asked politely.

"Yeah," the teenager next to her sighed. "She's been a real pest, too."

Before anything else could be said, Frieda finally entered the scene, with her Dokunemon skittering behind her. Something wasn't quite right about that Digimon, Claudia would admit, but only because it was impossible to deny that she twitched rather unnaturally. Dokunemon were never the healthiest Digimon, however, so she generally ignored it. Besides, Frieda herself didn't reflect Dokunemon's health problems, unless being rather pasty was considered a health problem. At least she only had a few piercings, and her black clothing and makeup were tasteful.

"Hey, Claudia," Frieda said coolly, although the two girls embraced warmly in greeting. When they separated, she nodded back to her room. "C'mon, I want to show you this."

Frieda's room was as dark as her wardrobe, and had far too many roses, skulls, and spider webs all over, but her scented candles made the entire room smell nice, so Claudia forgave her poor décor. "Show me what?" she asked after looking around. It appeared that Frieda had added a drawing to one of her walls, light pink and looking like a cross between a sun and a flower. But Frieda had never asked Claudia for her opinions on her room before, so she doubted that was related. "I don't see anything new except the flower…"

"That's because I'm not stupid enough to keep it out in the open. Here, give me a second to grab it." Claudia followed Frieda to her poorly-made bed, with Kunemon closely following at her heels to avoid Doknuemon, who had settled on the chair in front of Frieda's desk. The dark comforter was huge, large enough to go all the way to the floor and conceal the space underneath the bed. It was this that Frieda reached under, lifting her comforter up just enough to reach under and pull out a thin rectangular shape. Said shape became a silver laptop as Frieda stood up and opened it. She placed it on the bed and pressed the power button, talking while they waited for it to boot up. "You absolutely _cannot_ tell anybody about this, got it? This is some important stuff, but it's imperative that we keep this a secret from everybody. A lot of people can get in serious trouble for this."

"Why are you showing me, then?" Claudia asked. Her friend's hands quickly entered the password, only five characters long. Normally they were longer. The personal password she was normally required to use for logging on to computers, for example, was exactly eight characters. As far as Claudia knew, general passwords, which gave access to one specific computer, couldn't be less than seven.

Finally, the laptop background appeared, but Frieda covered the screen with her body before Claudia could catch more than a glimpse of it. She looked down into her friend's eyes with the utmost seriousness. In response, Claudia leaned back and nervously chuckled. "We haven't been able to use this computer. We can't check what's on it, install stuff, nothing. All we can do is log on, and that's it. The computer's completely blank, Claudia. No one can do anything using it."

"Why's that so bad?"

"When I say nothing, I mean _nothing_. Not even a Gate Program."

"What?! How?!"

"I don't know, but it's true."

"Well, why haven't you turned this in already?!" Claudia half-turned, as if she was going to do just that, but Frieda grabbed onto her wrist. Kunemon raised himself up in alarm, but Dokunemon made a clicking noise and jumped onto the bed, and Claudia's fake partner cowered away.

"Wait! Don't! Look, it's not doing anyone any harm. It's just… there."

"Why bother keeping it, then, especially since you know what they'll do if they catch you with it?"

Frieda looked away in what was clearly a silent struggle with herself before she spoke again. "The guy who gave me this told me about a rumor, that the computer's a test."

Now Claudia calmed down, instead moving her head to look curiously around Frieda and get a glimpse of the black background with its blue symbol of some kind in the center. "How so?"

"No one knows, apparently, although the guy thinks it has something to do with your digivice or something."

"Heh, I guess I don't qualify, then." Claudia pulled out her borrowed digivice. "This is hardly anything special. I only signed up for the basic model."

That got a chuckle out of Frieda. She moved to allow Claudia to actually examine her laptop, clearly relaxing. "I wasn't thinking you would. I just wanted to know if you knew-"

The teen was cut off by a gasp from Claudia, as the laptop's screen started glowing. "Hey!" her friend yelped, feeling an insistent tug that pulled her off balance. Frieda could only gape for a few seconds as the resulting stumble allowed for Claudia to get dragged almost all the way to the computer before she started fighting back as best as she could. Then, Frieda jumped to grab onto her, only for the light to repel her. She was pushed away with a surprised cry, and by the time she recovered, Claudia was gone, only her digivice left on the floor to indicate her former presence.

x.x.x.x

"Faith, where are you?" the old woman shouted, squinting through the crowd. Her Kiwimon, who was starting to regularly scratch at herself in a clear sign that she would evolve soon, stuck her own head around but did not repeat the call. Squawking in such a way had stopped being amusing for her years ago.

"I'm here, Grandma!" Faith said with a raised voice. Not too loud, though, she didn't want to disturb anyone around her. While her grandmother could get away with it, Faith was still quite young and thus it was her responsibility to avoid being too much of a distraction to her elders. Not to mention the fact that it was best not to give anyone else a reason to shoot her dirty looks. The status she held as a Digiless was reason enough for getting plenty of them.

Those without Digimon were considered the scum of society, because that was what they were: People so cruel in nature that no Digimon would accept to become their partner. Naturally, very few tamers wanted anything to do with them, since they were almost always quite bitter about not receiving a partner and thus lashed out in horrible ways to get their revenge. Very few people argued in favor of the Digiless any more after an incident a few years ago where an activist's adopted Digiless daughter brutally slaughtered him for no apparent reason. There was no evidence of any abuse, and she gave no reason except that she just wanted to. After that, no one objected to the implementation of even more laws against the Digiless, including legalization of usage of special locks that required a digivice to open, thus keeping Digiless from entering buildings without help. It wasn't a perfect system, but it made people feel safer.

Unfortunately, it was quite inconvenient for Faith. She had no intention of killing anyone, thank you very much, but since she had neither Digimon nor digivice, it was completely legal for shopkeepers to ban her from entering their stores, she couldn't enter schools or government buildings (or even use elevators) without someone's help, her mere presence tended to make every stranger around her extremely uncomfortable at best, and overall without her friends or grandparents to escort and vouch for her, there was very little she could do. As far as Faith knew, most Digiless didn't even have that much, since Faith only had people to stick up for her because she generally acted so extremely nice that she was jokingly called the Anti-Digiless.

But today that didn't matter so much, since her grandmother had escorted her to the local museum, where they were enjoying a day of going from exhibit to exhibit and pushing through crowds of complete strangers. It was nice, not worrying about anyone judging her, since who would realize that her Digimon was nonexistant instead of simply absent in this kind of crowd? The only downside was that it was far too easy to get seperated from her grandmother here, and she had promised her grandfather that she would keep a close eye on his wife to make sure that nothing happened to her. Nothing would happen, of course, but he tended to worry a lot about such things.

Anyway. When Faith caught up to her grandmother after being separated from her for the fifth time that visit, she made sure to grab one wrinkled hand, holding onto it with her smooth one. Even putting aside her grandfather's habit of worrying excessively, getting pushed away from her grandmother was starting to grow annoying. Faith was too polite to complain about it, of course, but Kiwimon seemed to sense her feelings and nudged her sympathetically. "Too many people," she croaked out in lieu of Faith's own complaint. "I can barely even see the exhibits."

"Oh, good, I thought I was the only one," the Digimon's partner said with an annoyed snort. "These little brats need to stop crowding around the glass." Although the elderly woman loved children dearly, she did get fed up with them quite quickly. It was especially easy for her when they mobbed around the clear box containing ancient pieces of shiny jewelry.

"It's not too bad," Faith offered placatingly. "I bet they'll move soon."

"Well, of course they'll _move_," her caretaker muttered, right as the children did just that. "They just weren't moving quickly enough."

The trio only spent a minute staring at the necklaces and earrings before the grandmother rushed them on under the policy of "You've seen one old ruby necklace, you've seen them all." From there, they hugged to the walls, moving around the slow group of kids and from there making steady progress around the room and to the next doorway. Then there was another dash to get to the prime spot in front of the faded furniture before anyone else could. After lingering there for a little longer than the jewelry room, they found a hallway lined with paintings. More important than those were the islands of benches in the middle of the room. There wasn't much space available on them, but Faith's grandmother managed to claim a spot squeezed in between a father exhausted with watching his children and a bored-looking Dinohyumon. Kiwimon settled down on the floor in front of her partner's feet, but that left nowhere for Faith to sit. Which was fine, because she didn't really _need _to sit, and her grandmother definitely needed to after walking for so long, but it would have been nice to rest her feet for just a bit.

"I only need to take a minute's breather," her grandmother informed her. "Then we can keep going if you want."

"That's okay," Faith said. "I want to finish exploring the museum, of course, but first I need to go find a restroom, if you don't mind."

"Oh, go ahead! You don't need to be asking me. Just don't take too long, or else I'll have to come looking for you, eh?"

"I won't," were Faith's last words before she departed with a small smile. That smile quickly dropped as she undertook the task of finding where exactly the bathrooms were. This task was not helped by how she was being constantly jostled, and slowly but surely pushed towards the walls. Well, not that she had any reason to resist it happening, so she went with the flow of the crowd. In this way she made great progress, all the way out of the room and into another, more transitory, hallway. Everyone moved through this much more quickly, and it was easy to locate the women's restroom, right next to an unassuming door marked 'EMPLOYEES ONLY'. Pleased with the discovery, Faith entered the restroom. A few minutes later, she exited it, humming a soft tune to herself. Now she just had to get back to her grandmother.

By complete happenstance, Faith casually glanced over at the 'EMPLOYEES ONLY' door, noting that it was being held open by a Renamon. Nothing unusual there, a member of the museum staff would likely have opted to block Renamon's evolution since Kyubimon were rather big to be moving around indoor spaces like this. What was strange was the teenager slipping past the Renamon, a rather androgynous boy who was far too young to be an employee. He could be an intern, Faith supposed, but his dark clothing suggested otherwise. She didn't want to cause a scene, but if the young teenager was the thief he looked like he was, then it was best that she stop him now, or at least clarify his intentions.

"Excuse me-" she therefore started, but as soon as the Renamon noticed that she had seen them, her eyes widened and she grabbed Faith's arm, pulling her into the room and shutting the door behind them. Before Faith could react, a partially-gloved paw was shoved over her mouth, keeping her from making a sound. Faith tried to push herself away, but the arm that the Renamon still held was twisted behind her back.

The boy whirled around at the sound of the movement. "Renamon, who is this?" he asked, clearly surprised.

"She saw us," the Digimon said grimly. "We'll have to dispose of her."

"What?" the boy said, looking just as alarmed as Faith was feeling. "No, no, no. No violence, remember?" Faith only relaxed a bit upon hearing this. "Look, we'll just take her with us, do our thing, let her go, then leave, okay?"

"If you say so," the Renamon managed to get out with obvious reluctance.

"I do," the boy said firmly, before addressing Faith. "Sorry about this, but if you just cooperate then we won't hurt you." Without another word, he turned and started walking through the room, past stacks of boxes both marked and unmarked. Renamon followed, pulling Faith along. She wasn't sure how long it was until he stopped, but eventually somewhere far into the room he came to a halt in front of one, missing a label and utterly unassuming. With one swift motion he pulled out a pocketknife and cut it open, then pulled out something like a smaller box and put it on top of another box. It wasn't until he turned it on that she realized he had found a computer. The device booted up, revealing a password screen. "Right, password," the boy said, then muttered 'she' and some other syllable as he typed it in. Faith might have gathered her courage and politely enquired as to what he wanted from the computer, but Renamon's hand was still firmly over her mouth even as she leaned forward eagerly to look at the computer screen.

Not that there was much to look at, just a black screen with a blue sideways 'S' symbol. Before Faith could realize the implications of what she was thinking, the screen started to glow, and suddenly the boy Renamon flew away with matching grunts. Several boxes were knocked over with their landings, but the sounds were overshadowed by Faith's scream as she realized she was being pulled in. For a few terrible seconds there was nothing but the frightened yell, all the way until Faith was forced into the computer's screen.

x.x.x.x

Isaac was lucky that not many people noticed him. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to get away with his habit of going to the library during the summer. The doors to the big and fancy one in his sector of the city were digivice-locked as a way of recording who came and went (and to keep Digiless from entering and vandalizing the books), but he could always get someone to hold open the door for him. He had just enough presence for people to politely keep it from closing on him if he rushed up to it while they were going through, but not quite enough for them to care whether or not he had anyone with him. From there, all he had to do was avoid the librarian and dash to the fantasy section, where he could read to his heart's content.

The local library, only a few blocks away from his house, was even simpler to get into. The people running it couldn't afford digivice-locks, so they left the building open for all to enter. Since their selection was considerably smaller, no one would really bother to mess with it, anyway. It would hardly be a huge blow to the community's source of knowledge if a book or two was stolen or the pages were torn out. Isaac preferred the school library, as even that was bigger than this one, but it was closed for the summer and this one was always almost empty despite being always open.

Well, except for today. Judging by the sign taped to its front, and the Digimon and humans with mops visible through the large hole in the doors' glass, someone had finally vandalized it enough for them to close down. Probably not for much more than an hour or two, it looked like they were well into the cleaning process, but Isaac decided that he would rather go to the larger selection of the big library than wait around for this one. It was more convenient most days, but he felt no particular sense of frequent customer loyalty.

His family left change dropped carelessly around the house, where it would sit for days until someone (usually Isaac) picked it up. He wasn't ever given money, even for an allowance, but by cleaning the floors and couches of the spare change he was able to accumulate more than enough money for bus fare. Unfortunately, it would not be the nice and air-conditioned bus, but instead the Monochromon Bus, like always. Said bus was essentially a bus-shaped carriage pulled by a Monochromon, notable for being smaller and slower than the regular bus but also cheaper and without such pesky requirements as the presence of a Digimon or a digivice to verify one's identity. Plus, the nearest station was closer, being on the street corner right next to the library Isaac was at.

Today he only had to wait somewhere between ten minutes and half an hour. After the first five minutes of the wait he had went ahead and counted out the exact change for paying the bus fare and then spent the rest of the time fidgeting awkwardly. When the Monochromon pulling the bus trundled to a stop next to him, he quickly and quietly entered through the doors and dropped his coins in the cup next to the driver's seat. Then he found himself a spot. This time he was forced to sit next to someone due to the lack of room available. Although he had thought that the hoodied girl sitting next to a window with her headphones in would be fine to sit with. Even the Burgermon in her lap looked to be asleep. Of course, the second he sat down next to her, she cracked open one eye and pulled out an ear bud.

"Where're you headin' for?" she asked lazily.

"Uh, the library," Isaac almost mumbled.

"Huh, I'm goin' there too. Tryin' to find a book on the Pre-Digital Age. What're you lookin' to find?"

"I dunno. Something in the nonfiction section, I guess." It was a miracle she even heard his answer.

Still, she did, and she seemed to find it acceptable although she ended up tilting her head at him with more curiosity. "Hey, where's your Digimon?"

"Not here," Isaac all but whispered, looking away uncomfortably. The girl seemed to take the hint and didn't bother him for the rest of the ride, although when the bus arrived at the library she held the door open for Isaac and winked at him before strolling away, Burgermon tucked under one arm.

Still slightly weirded out by her unusual desire to chat with her fellow busgoers, Isaac didn't pay attention to where he was walking. He didn't start paying attention until he bumped into one of the tables for people to sit at, far to the right of where Isaac normally went. This was probably the first time he had ever approached them, since he preferred to hide amongst the shelves and read from there. As far as Isaac remembered, he hadn't ever even explored the bookshelves in the area around the tables. Hm. Maybe he should do that today.

With that thought in mind, Isaac started walking around the tables. It was mid-morning on a weekday, so they were predictably deserted. There was one pair on the far side of them, a man and his Gargomon. They flipped through some books together, then slammed them shut with a sigh and stacked the books up. The man carried them back to the shelves while the Gargomon carefully pushed the chair in. Isaac lost sight of them after that, although he didn't care much beyond making a mental note to avoid following them.

He was almost to the end of the tables when he saw the computer. Someone had set it up, likely for writing a report or paper of some kind. The hypothesis was supported by the presence of paper notes surrounding it, but the lack of any sort of writing program on the computer's screen provided evidence against the idea. Isaac slowed down to examine it in mild curiosity. The background was rather strange, black with a blue symbol he hadn't ever seen before in quite the same form. No icons covered it, either, with the icon denoting the Gate Program providing the most conspicuous absence. Which was rather suspicious, to be honest. He glanced around, checking to make sure that the owner wasn't coming back to it, before scanning over the paper notes. All of them were gibberish, alien strings of numbers and letters forming codes and equations Isaac couldn't hope to understand. Okay, this was starting to cross the line from suspicious to possibly alarming. Still, he would keep calm.

His thoughts of keeping calm were unsurprisingly interrupted when the computer's screen burst into light. Because Isaac had been leaning in close to the screen without paying attention to it at that moment, he was immediately swallowed into it, only getting an instant to realize what was happening to him before it did.

x.x.x.x

The figure gazed into the sky as the dark cloud which had been forming all day finally burst, separating into six beams of light that flew in all different directions far beyond the horizon. "I wish them luck," the figure said gravely, and their words echoed lightly the walls surrounding them before everything fell into silence once more.


End file.
